


interlude: niki

by bluesandbirds



Series: back in business [4]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Dream Smp, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Niki | Nihachu-centric, Platonic Relationships, Pogtopia, the Pit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27359539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesandbirds/pseuds/bluesandbirds
Summary: Niki is a woman surrounded by men who all think they are Alexander Hamilton.(wilbur with his words. tommy who is young, scrappy, and so, so hungry. technoblade who doesn't throw away his shot. schlatt, always doing what it takes to survive.)Niki is kind. Niki is soft.(they areallrunning out of time.)
Relationships: Niki | Nihachu & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: back in business [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1998283
Comments: 30
Kudos: 521





	interlude: niki

**Author's Note:**

> summary's a line from my other fic "it ain't right and it ain't natural", but i wrote it so i'll use it as many times as i want
> 
> part of my business bay back in business series, can be read as a stand-alone, just ignore the end notes

It seems like a nightmare when Niki looks back on it. A cruel illusion summoned by her mind in the darkness of the night.

She replays how it starts " _Schlatt 2020 has been inaugurated"_ and how it continues _"D_ _o you know what happens to traitors, Tubbo?"_ (She has no clue when it ends.)

The thing about nightmares is that they only fall within the limits of one's own mind. And that's how Niki comes to accept that everything that's happened since the election— _"REVOKE THE CITIZENSHIP OF," "Fundy, you bastard,"_ _"Manburg"_ —is not a nightmare. Because not even in her most wretched of dreams does she imagine her best friend to be a madman and traitor.

It's real, is the terrible conclusion she comes to. It's all very much real, and so Niki puts on her big-girl pants and she lives it.

The aftermath of the Festival.

Chaos and cacophony.

Whispers on her communicator leading her to Pogtopia.

Tommy bursting in, Tubbo tucked in his arms, badly burned and barely breathing.

Wilbur pulling a medical cot out of nowhere and setting it up in the middle of the landing.

Tommy laying down Tubbo with gentleness she forgot he possessed.

Technoblade tossing her a first aid kit. 

She gets to work, mind on autopilot. White bandages. Cool water. Hot skin. The smell of smoke. Fluttering eyes. Her hands shake but they move without thinking. She's done it all so many times before.

Tommy turning on his older brother, accusations hurled like explosives on a battlefield.

Technoblade taking it all calmly, answering Tommy's rage with flippant excuses.

Tears build in her eyes as their argument crescendos, a terrible backing track to her dreadful task.

Wilbur joins the chorus with haunting laughs and excited clapping.

She doesn't know this man.

His tone is almost jovial as he says, " _Woah_ , _woah, woah. Tommy, stop talking on behalf of Tubbo. I wanna hear what he thinks."_

Wilbur leaning over and snapping his fingers in front of Tubbo's unfocused eyes. 

_"How do you feel, Tubbo? How much do you hate that man? Look at him."_

And Tubbo—half-dead and so, so tired—sealing his friend's fate. _"Oh fine, Wilbur, let them duel in the pit_."

Niki pulls Tommy aside before the fight to talk—to gain some clarity or sense—but each of his answers only add to the weight in her chest. 

He looks angry, and lost, and abandoned, and broken. Like everything that was good and alive about him was sucked out by war and betrayal. His hope and light replaced by slumped shoulders and dirty knuckles.

This boy is not the one who welcomed her into L'Manburg with an impish smile and open arms. Tommy hasn't been that boy for a long time.

She saw a glimpse of it during the Battle of the Lake. She remembers standing with him over Henry's monument and silently swearing that, as long as she's alive, her boys will never feel like that again. ~~She failed.~~

_"What happened? Why... I don't understand. I've—"_

_"He's became the villain, Niki."_

~~_("We're not the villains.")_ ~~

The sickly familiar feeling of betrayal weighs heavy on her own shoulders and in this moment, she can offer nothing but luck and a prayer that Technoblade remembers that he was human before he was the Blood God.

Tommy throws the first punch.

Niki isn't proud, but she looks away.

It doesn't stop her from hearing the impact of fists on flesh, cries from Tommy, grunts from Techno—the sounds of a fight turned into a beating. She hears when it stops too. Wheezing breaths. Boots on stone as Technoblade passes by without looking back.

Wilbur's hands guiding her away. "Don't worry about good ol' Tommy. He'll be fine, isn't he always?"

She thinks it's a small mercy that Tubbo slipped into unconsciousness so he didn't have to witness the full fight.

They carry Tubbo in his cot to a more permanent medbay tucked into the ravine wall. She tries to check over his wounds, but gives up when all she can see is blurry shapes.

Technoblade and Wilbur have a conversation above her head, but she pays them no mind. She is stuck studying Tubbo's face. Bandaged and burned. He still faintly smells of smoke. Even in unconsciousness, his face is pinched and tense. She wonders what he dreams about.

The two men go to do their business elsewhere and Niki is left in a silent ravine.

She musters the courage to retrace her steps. Back down the stairs with no railings, past the oddly placed redstone blocks in the walls, across the unsteady oak planks. Back to the Pit.

Still lying where they left him is a boy coated in shadows and blood.

With a sob, she falls to her knees beside him.

She ignores how her ankles stick on the ground. In the darkness, it can be water and nothing else soaking the cobblestone.

At first, she tries to lift him in her arms like she's seen the others do before, but he is 6'3" of teenage boy and Niki's hands are soft and shaky.

Gently, she whispers, "Tommy, can you try and stand a little?"

He shifts the slightest bit, but stops and lets out a whimper. It's a terrible, little sound that strikes her right in the heart.

Niki swallows salt and desperation. "I know it hurts, but I need you to help to get you out. I cannot carry you alone."

His head jerks and his whole body trembles.

"Please, Tommy," she begs, "please, I can't—I can't..." She breaks off into tears.

But the boy stays.

Niki tries, _oh how she tries_. She pulls his legs, his arms, his torso, but he just cries and cries, and she joins him with hiccuping sobs, a pitiful chorus of sorrow that echoes around the chamber.

"I cannot carry you. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." 

She lets her head drop and her tears fall, turning the slick cobblestone pink.

This boy—their spitfire, whirlwind boy—is in pain. Pain beyond swelling bruises and broken bones, and Niki can do nothing.

The cobblestone turns to grass, the body in her arms disappears, and she's looking up, not down. She's back in the presidential grandstand on _that_ day. Wilbur and Tommy blow past, hand in hand, and she can only watch as they are chased out like mice.

And then she's hiding away from cruel decrees and burning flags, and sending desperate messages that receive no answer.

And then she's at the festival, staring up in horror, praying that Wilbur or someone has a plan.

Niki can't do anything.

She cries for this boy, for his best friend, for his brothers, his father, and all their friends. She cries for herself.

He whines.

Softly, she strokes his hair.

A rattling breath. Then, the faintest movement, a twitch. And another. And the boy is shifting in her arms.

Niki gasps, jolting to assist. She helps him move, answers every pained noise with words of comfort and encouragement, and together, they stand.

She winces at the sound of jeans peeling from the ground. If she looks down, her light wash will be a deep crimson.

They stagger out of the Pit and out of the darkness.

On their way to the medbay, they run into Wilbur and Technoblade. 

Wilbur's face splits into a manic grin while Technoblade remains stoic as always.

A chill goes down her spine when she meets Wilbur's eyes. She looks deep into cold, cold brown and she sees _nothing_. (She knows he probably sees the same when he looks at them.)

Tommy shakes in her arms, and all she can do is hold him up as he goes off once more. His words are slurred and he can barely lift his head, but his anger wasn't at all quelled by the Pit. (She fears it's all he has left.)

Finally, she carries him off with the promise that Tubbo is waiting for him in the medbay.

Something inside him quiets at the sight of his friend—burned, bleeding, but still breathing—on the cot. He is silent as she gets him on a cot of his own, pushes the two of them closer together, and fetches a blanket to keep out the cold.

She gives him the last of the healing potions, a stock that could have served an army spent on two teenage boys.

The potion does its work and his bruises fade and his cuts vanish. Aside from the dirt, and the dried blood, and the aches he'll surely feel when he wakes up, Tommy looks like a boy never touched by war. Niki thinks to herself _if only it were that simple._

She sit with her boys as they sleep, watching the reassuring rise and fall of their chests.

Tommy disappears sometime in the night.

She wakes up in a cold sweat as she does most nights and when she looks for her boys, she only finds one. Silent footsteps bring her outside and there he is, surrounded by purple flowers and doused in moonlight.

Niki is the one to take his hand and guide him back. 

Before they descend back into Pogtopia, he stops.

"I'm sorry," he says at the entrance of the ravine, looking far and lost.

She tilts her head. "What for?"

"Leaving you behind in that place. Leaving you alone. That was shitty of us."

She sighs. "If you're sorry for that, then I am sorry for leaving you in the pit."

"We don't do that anymore," Tommy says, a new spark in his eyes. "We don't leave anyone behind. We need to stick together if we're gonna do this."

She squeezes his hand and smiles.

"Together."

**Author's Note:**

> and when, just days after another lost boy joins them, her boy brings back a _Wisp_ with untrusting eyes and the gait of a ghost, she takes his hand and welcomes him too.


End file.
